FOUR years ago, Colleen Weston was one of the many young Americans enchanted by Barack Obama's message of hope and change.

Now the 28-year-old marketing director from Cleveland in the battleground state of Ohio says she has grown up and will this time vote for Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

"I am definitely disappointed in the job that has not been done," Ms Weston explains.

"The positions Obama ran on in 2008 like turning the economy around and making change for the American people, I just haven't seen it."

As Obama's hair has turned grey during his time in the Oval Office, recent surveys suggest his support among young people is slipping.

Especially in swing states like Ohio, where the outcome of the election hangs on a knife-edge, a lack of enthusiasm among young voters could jeopardise the president's re-election bid.

Youngsters who helped Mr Obama conquer the White House have matured in an economy still suffering from the recession, struggling to find work and moving back in with their parents.

Research by Generation Opportunity, a non-partisan group working with Americans aged 18 to 29, shows the depth of pain among America's youth.

Eighty-nine per cent of young people said the economy was having an impact in their daily lives, and many had cut the amount of money they spent on entertainment, vacations and groceries. Seventeen per cent had put off a lifetime moment like a wedding.

In 2008, Ms Weston was a fresh college graduate who had just started her first job at the small manufacturing company in Cleveland she still works for today.

"My perspective on how things really work has changed over the past four years," she says.

"I had kids since then, and the stability of my job and my husband's job is obviously a huge concern."

Ms Weston has one son and two stepchildren. Her husband Scott was laid off three years ago, went back to college and is starting a new career from scratch. In January, they expect their second child together.

"I have seen first-hand the effects that this economy has had on businesses in Ohio especially," she says, fearing a future as bleak as the November sky hanging over Ohio.

"I feel it's gotten a whole lot worse and a whole lot harder for our family to make it."

Ms Weston believes that Mr Romney is better suited for turning the economy around, citing the Republican candidate's "track record of making businesses successful" at the helm of private-equity company Bain Capital.

"At the time being 24, you think that the social issues are really important," she adds.

In the last election, 66 per cent of people under 30 voted for Mr Obama over his Republican foe John McCain.

A Harvard Institute of Politics national poll published last month showed that Mr Obama has lost some ground among the 18-to-29-year-olds likeliest to vote, leading Romney with 55 per cent to 36 per cent.

Another worry for the Obama campaign is young voter turnout. According to Washington Post-ABC News polls in September and October, 67 per cent of registered voters under 30 said they are absolutely certain they will vote. During the same period four years ago, that figure was 80 per cent.

Derek Anders was still living under his parents' roof in Barberton in Ohio, when he cast his ballot for Mr Obama in 2008.

A 19-year-old high-school senior at the time, he says the Democratic candidate was his natural choice.

"I did believe in hope and change, we were going through a huge economic crisis, we were involved in two wars," Mr Anders explains.

He was also supporting the right of homosexual couples to get married: "I really wanted gay marriage to happen."

After the midterm election in 2010, Mr Anders started questioning his decision.

"I am seeing our national debt growing, seeing more people on unemployment, on food stamps," he says. Mr Anders sat down at his computer and searched the internet for answers, "fact-checking my own beliefs."

The college student, who is finishing a degree in special education, says he is turned off by Mr Obama's "demonising" of business success.

"I have faith and hope that Romney can do what he has done his entire life, that is turn companies around," he says. "I think he can bring that aspect of himself to White House."

On the social issues like gay marriage that still matter to him, Mr Anders hopes for a Romney flip-flop.

"The Romney that governed in Massachusetts is definitely more of a moderate," he says. "I do think he has the ability to reach across the aisle."

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